CONWAY, S.C. (WBTW) — This week marks three years since a longtime Conway police officer was shot and killed by his stepson.

News13 spoke with the family of Lt. James Odell Cochran, a man with nearly four decades of community service, about the anniversary of his death.

Lt. Cochran was a retired 38-year veteran with the Conway Police Department. He was shot and killed by his stepson Eric Faulk on March 5, 2020. Faulk drove off in Cochran’s truck before he was tracked down weeks later.

Cochran’s sister, Reat Singletary, says Cochran was her best friend.

“He was a good person. He was a peacemaker,” Singletary said. “He was a good father, he was a good friend, [but] most of all, he was an honest police officer.”

Singletary says Cochran was loved all throughout Conway and was the type of person who’d give you the shirt off his back. Hundreds of people attended his funeral, including more than a dozen Conway police officers Cochran trained over the years.

“Odell’s a person you can go in Conway right and just say his name, and they’ll tell you what kind of person he was,” Singletary said. “We don’t have to get out and say ‘my brother did this, my brother did that’ — his life spoke for him.”

Faulk was sentenced to 20 years in prison in November after pleading guilty to voluntary manslaughter instead of going to trial for murder.

Singletary says she is working to forgive Faulk for his actions.

“I’m working on forgiving you, because if Odell was here, he’d forgive you because he was that second chance person,” Singletary said.

Singletary also added that although it gets a little bit easier as each year goes by, she misses him “every day.”